Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Looking for Leadville Pacers and sweet new gadget

So much for keeping up with my regular postings. Looks like I have become about as reliable as the Postal Service. Checks in the mail, honest. I have unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately depending on your view point) fallen way behind on my race reports. Will try to play catch up in the next few weeks to give you even more internet content that you can and should ignore.

Hey before you actually start that ignoring thing its that time again. Its time to crank up the final 8 weeks of training in an attempt to get ready to run 100 miles at Leadville. You would think that I might have learned my lesson last year. Man you couldn't be more wrong. Have you not read this blog before? I almost never learn my lesson and if I do I soon forget. Thats one character trait you really need to run Ultras, the ability to totally forget just how horrible it sometimes gets. You call it horrible, we call it "having fun". Also someone told me that there will be way more oxygen at the top of Hopes Pass this year and I am choosing to believe them.

After a two week break to let my injured foot recover from Sulphur Springs I have built the mileage back up to an acceptable 125km a week level so time to start more race specific training. Not much I can do about altitude here in Toronto so the next 6 weeks will see lots of stair climbing, hill repeats and back to back long runs including 50k runs at Creemore and Limberlost. I will also be picking up trekking poles next week in time to get a bit of practice before Leadville. I plan on using them on the Pass and maybe inbound on the Powerline. They should really help because last year when I couldn't breath I had to lean forward hands on my knees. This year I can just use the poles to hold me up and its easier than caring a chair.

Pacers???
Okay so in all seriousness I am looking for a couple of pacers this year. There is little doubt that I will be running just ahead of the cutoffs again this year. Thats just a sucky high altitude fact of life for someone like me. Having someone to mule and help pull me / push me along might be the difference between finishing or curling up in a ball at the side of the trail.

If you happen to live in CO or are going to be in CO on Aug 18-19th and are interested in pacing leave me a message.

B-Day Gift
Last weekend was my birthday and I got a huge surprise from my wife. She bought me a Suunto Abit to replace my ancient Garmin which was just about dead. Holy crap a GPS that will actually last as long as a 100 mile race. Will be taking it out for a test run this week once I figure out how to set the thing up.

10 comments:

Hi Chris. Alex here. Glad to see you at Niagara and thanks to Kim for planting a medal on my sorry ass (err, neck) at the finish and helping out. Great to see you both. Nice toy you got from Kim. I'm still waiting on a SS report. Want to hear the good, bad and ugly. Glad Leadville is motivating you. I want a finishing medal from you this year :) All the best and see you at Creemore.

Hope you get some pacers. I enjoyed my pacing duties at Sulphur with my friend, but not nearly as challenging as I'm sure Limberlost will be. Love the new gadget, that's awesome. Amazing it'll last that long!

I SO wish I weren't doing Pikes Peak Marathon this year and could pace you at Leadville - I'd rather be there 10x over doing PPM. I hope you find some great people to help you out. Good luck - let me know how it goes!

C+C Runnning Factory

C+C Running Factory

About Me

I am a 40 something road and trail runner living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I try to get out and run almost every day even when the weather doesn’t want to cooperate. See my initial blog entry for more about me. My habit of talking (or writing) on and on leaves the space under the “About Me” section woefully inadequate which will come as no surprise to those of you that know me.